English | Algerian
My parents met in Casper’s Bar in London in the early 90’s. I was raised by my Mum, with the support of my Grandparents in Leicester; my Dad left before I was born. My role model is my late Mum, Keely. To succeed in raising two children with very limited resources as a single Mother was utterly selfless, determined and heroic.
Mum would sometimes talk about the way my Dad struggled to adapt to cultural nuances in the UK as he had grown up in a conservative Islamic culture in Algeria. Although I've always been aware of my Algerian heritage, I hadn't explored it until 2022 when I met my Algerian family for the first time. However, I was always interested in its unique history; from the philosophy of Albert Camus through to Tim Leary hiding in Algeria with The Black Panthers and obviously the civil war.
Last year, an incredibly serendipitous text message to my (unbeknownst to me) late Dad eventually led to me meeting my long-lost half-brother and extended family in Algeria for the first time. Within a few days of meeting my half-brother and catching up on over thirty years of life, we were on a plane together to repatriate our late Dad in his birthplace of Batna, Algeria. When I arrived, I met my Nan, five Aunts, four Uncles and over twenty cousins for the first time, staying in the house that my Dad grew-up in as a child. A few days later, we buried Dad in a traditional Islamic funeral where I got to meet many of his childhood friends and my wider Algerian family. It was a life-changing experience that I'm still processing and writing about now.
I think there's more awareness nowadays around the intersectionality of race and class and how this can impact the family unit. If you haven't explored part of your heritage or have thought about it, don't wait any longer. At the risk of sounding corny, you don't know where the journey will take you, what you’ll discover about yourself and the world around you, or the relationships you might be missing out on.
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